Alex Rider and life as a Teenage spy
by Zone-Blitz
Summary: Alex Rider saved her life. Then she moved schools and who should she find, but everyone's favorite teenaged spy. She tries to thank him and make his school life easier. Awkwardness ensues. Rated M for some dark stuff.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Guess what I don't own Alex Rider

AN: Had the idea for this story kicking around in my head for a while. Essentially, Alex saves a girl his own age, and then she shows up at his school, causing all sorts of havoc in his life. Ghost by John Ringo is a large inspiration for this story and I can't help but feel that Alex Rider would grow up to be disturbingly like Mike Harmon/Jenkins. For anyone who hasn't read John Ringo's books especially the Ghost series check them out. They are the Pantheon of military fiction. Reviews are always appreciated.

The entirety of K-unit, a military helicopter pilot, and a sixteen year old were sitting in the passenger section of a Blackhawk helicopter waiting for the go ahead. The tension was palpable and Alex Rider was getting more and more irritated with every passing second.

After another five minutes of pained silence Alex Rider stood up and said, "I'm going."

The pilot was nervous and said, "You can't. We haven't been given the go ahead yet. You'll get court-martialed."

The teenager just shrugged and said, "They can't court-martial someone who doesn't exist, and even if they do decide to have me thrown in jail, I can't sit around knowing that those women are probably going through hell while politicians bicker. I'm going to rescue them."

K-unit seemed to agree and turned to Wolf for their orders. Wolf was sick of waiting to, and said, "If he's going were going. We can't just leave them there. You know what terrorists do to women they've captured." Each member of K-unit nodded. They were getting their game faces on.

Alex interrupted them, "No I'm going alone."

"With all due respect Cub, that's bullshit. We're coming with you." Wolf said in a hard voice.

"If you come with all of us and all the hostages are going to die. We don't have enough men to take the compound, so the only available option left to us is to sneak in. I can't do that if you guys are with me. You stick out, and you don't know the language, We'll be dead within a hundred feet." Cub explained in a no nonsense voice

Wolf seemed to be struggling to find a hole in Alex's logic but was finally forced to admit defeat. The teen had been doing recon in the area for several weeks and he could now blend into the crowds of militants perfectly.

Wolf was almost jealous of Cub. He was the perfect spy. Trained by his uncle, MI-6, the SAS, and then Scorpia, Alex had been turned into one of the most dangerous men in the planet. He was better at being a spy than Wolf would be at anything in his life. If Alex dyed his hair black and grew a little bit of facial stubble he looked anything from an Afghan to an Arab.

Wolf watched Alex close his eyes and take a few deep breathes. His posture and facial expression changed slightly but the overall effect was vast. With hunched over shoulders and an almost vacant look on his face he went from being a British Special Operations specialist to a slightly dim oppressed native. He grabbed one of the stolen AK-47s and he looked exactly like a young mujahadeen.

Wolf watched Alex grab the gun and he couldn't help but feel slightly useless. He was one of the best soldiers in the world and he was stuck watching a teenager empty the gun-rack and walk off about to enter the sharp end while he was stuck sitting in the damn chopper.

Alex wandered through the sparse foliage and onto the sharp sand of the Syrian Desert. The run was hell. The only cover within a hundred miles from the target site had been a small oasis about eight miles from the site. Without a vehicle that meant that Alex had to run the distance.

Under normal circumstances an eight mile run, for Alex was a nice warm up before he got down to doing some real running. He wasn't under normal circumstances. Eight Miles at Breacon Beacons wasn't in the same universe as eight miles through the Syrian Desert with a hundred degree heat pounding down on you.

He got to the fenced off compound in about an hour, and he was sucking wind as he got his first real life look at the place. He'd seen satellite images and the pictures that Wolf and his team had taken while reconnoitering but nothing measured up to a personal investigation.

The perimeter was fenced off and had barbed wire along the top. Fuse boxes every a hundred feet, meant that it was probably electrified also. The gate was flanked by two towers and both had a guard holding the standard Ak-47 of a Muslim militia.

The compound was big, about half a million square feet, and had three buildings. One looked a lot like a barracks/guardhouse complete with fire-ports to fire on anyone who broke through the gate.

The second building looked like an administration building and was run down by the harsh desert weather, it had a few windows that were boarded up but the doors had new doors that looked armored.

The third building was obviously the only original building. According to the report he'd read on the facility it had originally been a Soviet weapons factory. The smokestacks were still bellowing out toxic gasses and from the air quality scans MI-6 suspected it was a current WMD production building. Which was why as soon as the hostages were clear, A B-52 was waiting fueled on an airstrip in Israel ready to fly over the facility and MOAB it until it was nothing but a large crater.

Alex tossed the friction strap the AK-47 had had in the chopper. Muslim militias couldn't afford such things, and it would make him stick out. He jogged up to the gate and waved his arms.

The man on top of the right tower lowered his sunglassed eyes at Alex and shouted in harsh Farsi, "What do you want?"

Alex answered back in his best Farsi, "I come with a message to the warriors of Allah."

The man on the watchtower just nodded slapped the button opening the gate. It wasn't really his fault that he'd just let an enemy agent walk into the base. They were told to look for a whole convoy of vehicles and Black Ops soldiers, not a young looking mujahadeen. Several similar kids had been used to deliver messages when the radios had gone out like they were prone to doing in the poor Middle Eastern countries.

It may have been different if he hadn't spoken Farsi, or even spoken it with an accent but it had sounded completely natural. Ian Rider and Scorpia didn't make mistakes when it came to training.

Alex strutted into the compound like he owned the place. That was one of the first things his uncle had told him. Act like you belong somewhere and nobody will stop you. The philosophy served him well. He walked through several more lines of security without even being stopped. These men weren't professional soldiers. They were desert rats being paid peanuts to hopefully get the chance to take a shot at the Great Satan and Europe.

As Alex passed the last line of security he was trying to figure out where the hostages were being kept. Knowing what Muslim militias did with female prisoners he was trying to decide if they would be kept in the administrative building for easier access for the high ranking officers or in the barracks which had more security.

He finally decided the Barracks was more likely. He made his decision based on the leader of this particular cell of Muslim nut-jobs. Sazar Zakoui was a true believer. One of the terrorists who would gladly have given his life in any of the various attacks against Western Civilization which 9-11 was only the most known about. He wouldn't put his own pleasure ahead of the chances of mission success.

No matter how arrogant terrorists were they knew deep down that a militarily superior force was coming to wipe them off the face of the earth. He knew that someone would come for the girls, just neither him nor anyone in his organization suspected it would be a teenage spy named Alex Rider.

He made his way to the barracks and nodded at the door guard. He adapted a weary smile like that of an enthusiastic young soldier of Allah ready to catch an hour of sleep on his break. The guard didn't question him.

He made his way down the stairs into the barracks and was surprised by how large the building was. It was at least three stories deep and he suspected the prisoners would be held on the bottom floor. Sazar Zakoui was a paranoid bastard.

Alex stepped through to the first set of rooms and noticed only one jihadist asleep. Making a decision that only months ago would have sickened him, he slipped into the room and quietly closed the door. He flipped open the concealed knife he always carried with him and slid it across the jihadist's throat severing the wind pipe. The man awoke only for a second gurgling and choking on his own blood. The slight noises the man made weren't heard through the heavy armored door of the room.

Alex quickly hid the man's body under the bed and hid it with a blanket. He didn't worry too much about the blood on the bed. It wasn't the first blood stain on the mattress but hopefully it would be the last.

He grimaced to himself. He didn't like killing people especially if they were defenseless, but he knew that part of his mission would be extraction and the fewer terrorists around when he had to do that the better. It would be tough enough on without allowing the enemy more men.

As he ghosted quickly and quietly through the barracks he fought the desire to open fire on the men on the barracks. They were the enemy. The only reason he didn't was that as soon as he did he would be swamped with Muslim bastards. He had to wait as long as possible, preferably until he was on his way out until he could use the weapon.

He jogged down the steps to the third floor and was met with a long hallway. There was just one man with an AK-74u, guarding the door. As soon as he saw Alex he pulled his gun up and shouted in harsh Farsi, "You are not allowed to be here leave here before I shot."

Alex let some of the real fear show in his face for the first time but kept walking before answering, "I have a message, I have to give it to you."

The man looked unsure for a second but nodded and barked, "Fine, but then you leave."

Alex nodded and just as he was in front of the man shoved the AK-47 into the man's chest and let out a three round burst. The man's body masked the sound well enough that Alex hoped it hadn't been heard through the even thinker steel walls of the room the man had been guarding.

Alex searched the man's body and finally found the key card that was used to open the door. He took a deep breath and opened the door. He counted five men, five enemies, five targets that needed to be serviced. They weren't men. They were animals that needed to be put down.

"Why can't we rape Satan's whores? It says in the Koran that women of enemy can be raped." one man argued in Farsi to another man.

The second man looked exasperated, like they'd had this conversation many times, before he saw Alex.

He turned and shouted, "You can't be here leave now."

He was answered with a three round burst to the chest from Alex's AK-47. The man he was arguing with met the same fate before anyone in the room even understood what was happening.

Two of the men struggled with their own AK's. One dropped his in shock and the other fired a couple rounds into the ground in his haste. Both died quickly.

Mahohamed hadn't had a gun but had snatched a knife from one of the tables and was holding it to the neck of one of the hostages using her as a human shield.

"Drop the gun or the whore dies." he shouted scared out of his mind. The men he had been in the room with had been some of the fiercest fighters he'd ever fought with. They were the highest ranking in the entire cell behind only Sazar himself, and they were cut down like maggots unworthy of the teenager's attention. He was quite the fighter himself and had survived many battles with other tribes in the region. He had an advantage he thought. All westerners negotiated for hostages.

"Drop the knife and you're paralyzed from the neck down, instead of dead on the floor." was the answer from the teenager. He wasn't expecting that. Westerners didn't answer like that

Mahohamed was thinking desperately but the only card he had was the hostage. If he killed her, the teenager would kill him. Eventually he answered with, "I know how you westerners work. You do not sacrifice innocents to kill Allah's warriors. Drop your weapon or the girl dies."

A look of defeat passed over the teenager's eyes and the teenager said, "Okay fine I'm putting the gun dow" And splattered the man's brains all over the wall behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

Mary had been terrified for the past forty eight hours. Her private school had been taking a tour of the middle-east by bus, when several men had jumped onto the bus and shot the driver. She and the rest of her school mates had screamed when the man's blood had stained the window next to him.

The men had then driven the bus to a warehouse, where the girls were then loaded onto one of the tarp covered transport truck used by every military everywhere. They had then been driven through the sweltering heat to the facility where they were now being held.

She knew what was likely going to happen to them. She refused to let that happen and she knew enough self defense to make it too difficult and they would hopefully be forced to shoot her. She continued praying for rescue while she observed their captors.

One was yelling and gesturing and it was obvious what he wanted to do. She had labeled him Bad Cop. The man he was arguing with was obviously higher ranking and was preventing him from doing what he wanted to. He was Good Cop.

The other three were standing off to the side. One was large and hadn't let an emotion slip across his face since he'd stepped into the room. He was Stone Face. The fourth was slightly cross-eyed, and seemed to be pretty dumb. He was Cross-Eyes. Weasel was the fifth man. He was thinner than the others and kept making weird faces.

Her head snapped up as the vault like door opened, and a young teenager stepped through the door. He carried a gun like all the other men she'd seen since their bus was hijacked.

Good cop saw him and screamed something. She almost missed it, Teenager brought the gun up and Good Cop bought the farm, just like that. Bad Cop joined him before her brain processed what was happening. Stone face brought his gun up quickly but the butt of the gun smacked against one of the chair's the girls were tied to and it bounced out of his hands. He joined the first two men. Cross-Eyes when bringing his gun up had accidentaly shot the floor. It was a little too close to Julie for her to feel comfortable. A second later, Cross-Eyes went to have a discussion with Allah. She had a feeling it wouldn't be a happy one.

Meanwhile, Weasel had picked up a knife and was holding it to Stephanie's throat. He shouted something harsh sounding at Teenager. Teenager had shouted something back. Weasel paused for a second, and then resumed shouting. Teenager pulled his left hand off the barrel of the gun in a signal of surrender, he spoke softly and slowly, and she wanted to shout at him for being dumb enough to surrender. Then he shot Weasel, it was so unexpected someone screamed, it might have been her.

It was an incredible shot, she wouldn't have been comfortable aiming for that small of a target in her back yard with a place to balance a high quality hunting rifle and scope. Making that shot one handed, in a pressure situation, with an AK-47 of all guns was bordering on prodigal.

He moved quickly among the bodies, pulling grenades, magazines, and weapons until he found a key to the cuffs they were forced to wear.

He uncuffed her and said, "You seem the least messed up of everyone here. I need you to release you're classmates and make sure no one is going into shock. Everybody nedds to be able to walk out of here."

He went back to searching the bodies. Stone-face twitched slightly and Teenager shot him in the head with a short burst to make sure he was actually dead. He held the terrorists guns and moved down the line looking into everyone's eyes. She got a gun and so did the three other least useless people in the class. How he knew who that was without knowing any of them she didn't know.

He pocketed the grenades and all the spare magazines before thinking better and throwing one to her. She caught and slid it into the waist band of her skirt. 'Were still wearing our stupid uniforms for god's sake' she thought to herself.

Teenager stepped onto the table the men had been sitting at before he entered and shouted to get everyone's attention. The crying stopped, and everyone turned to listen to him. People listened to him, he may have been a teenager but he'd saved them from the bad guys so to them he was a mix between God and Rambo.

"Listen up, I'm getting you guys out of here, but it's going to take time. We're still surrounded and I need to call in some support before we can do anything else. Please stay calm while I'm talking on the phone and You'll be out of here as soon as possible." he then jumped off the table and pulled out a small cell phone.

"Control the girls are secure but we still need to evac." Teenager said in a tight controlled voice.

"You think I don't fuckin' know that. We got half an hour max before the rag-heads figure out what's going on and come take their bunker back." Teenager said irritated.

"I don't give a flying fuck. Unless I get some support we're dead. Me and the hostages." Teenager whispered harshly

A slow smile crept across Teenagers face, until it looked downright feral. "Yes that would be absolutely perfect. Bring the rain. I owe you for this. Cub out."

"Red head get over here." he said still with a giddy smile on his face.

Mary obediently got up and walked over to him. She'd shucked off her grey sweater and was wearing Weasel's bulletproof vest over her bra. Alex was oddly turned on.

"As the most functioning civilian in this room. I proudly give you code name Joan of Ark. I'm going to have to start killing people real quick here, and you're job is going to be to make sure none of the girls break and run."

She gave him a mocking salute and said, "Thank you, do you have a name? calling you teenager like I've been doing in my head sounds disrespectful."

He looked her up and down before saying, "Call me Cub."

She watched the girls, smiling and giving words of encouragement to the one's who looked like they were in really bad shape. Every once in a while, her eyes would flick over to Cub. He was glancing at his watch desperately.

Just as she thought the wait was about to kill her, she heard a deep roar. Several seconds later the sounds of screams and explosions were heard. Cub had a scary grin on his face and was looking at his watch. Two minutes after the first explosion they were still happening and Cub stood up and said, "Let's move out people. Joan of Ark, you're bringing up the rear. I've got point."

The walk through the bunker was scarier than the actual capture and transport. The wait was worse, but other than that, she'd never been more scared in her life. The bunker seemed to be empty. The people were obviously reacting to whatever the now constant explosions were. By the time they were on the ground floor of the bunker the explosions were so loud they were hurting her ears.

There first contact with the enemy came just as they were about to leave the bunker. There were several men firing up into the sky out of the fire-ports and from the open door. There backs were turned towards them but Cub didn't miss a beat, and was killing bad guys left and right. The explosions were so loud the men at the fire-ports didn't even notice they were under fire until the man next to him dropped. It was clean and brutally efficient.

When the last one was dead, Cub pulled out his cell phone and screamed into it, "Building One is clear concentrate fire on the Building Three. We need to get to the vehicles in Building Two"

"Affirmative. Moving"

There was a lull in the shouting and the explosions. Cub looked back at them and then pointed to Mary's best friend, Sasha. Sasha was probably the second least terrified behind Mary. Sasha moved over to him and Cub shouted, "We need to get to the vehicles in that building over there." He said pointing to the administrative building. They could just make out garage doors across the destroyed courtyard.

"The AC-130 is going to start firing again and we're going to have to run like hell." he warned her. Sasha nodded, terrified but ready.

Alex heard the dull roar start again and he ran with Sasha right on his heels. She'd kicked off her high heeled shoes and had gotten Mary's tennis shoes. He had to slow up so she could keep up but not as much as he'd feared. The run was probably the most exhilarating think he'd ever done. The 105 mm cannon from the AC-130 was slamming into the WMD factory and blowing plaster and rubble into the air. It was a miracle they weren't dead and he'd never felt more alive.

Sasha grabbed the garage door and tried to pull up but it wasn't moving. She looked at him panicked and yelled, "It's locked. What are we going to do?"

He pulled her behind him, and then shot the lock off the door with the AK-47. He opened the door and pushed her into the driver seat of the Technical Pick-up truck second in line. The trucks were nothing more than old trucks that someone had bolted a turret to the back of the bed. They were the Muslim equivalent of a Humvee. He grabbed a hold of her, noticed her pupils were hugely dilated out of panic.

"This is easy, we're driving over there, and the other girls are going to get in your car just like a Saturday night. We are then going to drive out of here and you are going to follow me." he said as calmly as possible. Her breathing slowed down and she seemed to focus more.

"Sasha do you understand me?"

She nodded slowly and when it became clear he wasn't happy with that she nodded and said, "Yes I understand you. Just don't ask me to Parallel Park."

A smile crossed Alex's face and he said, "A good commander never asks his subordinates to do something he can't do. I am also proud to give you the code name Danica."

She nodded and he got into the Technical pick-up in front of her.

He pulled out of the garage and she was right behind him. They crossed the court yard in two seconds and pulled up next to the entrance to the barracks.

As soon as Mary had seen the trucks she'd had the girls organized in groups of seven and they were in the trucks in no time. Two in the front seat next to the driver and the rest in the bed of the truck. Alex had Mary jump on the turret of Sasha's Technical. He didn't trust any of the other girls to man the gun on his truck. They'd probably have shot Sasha's truck and not the enemy.

While they were loading, Alex was screaming into his phone, "What the fuck people sixteen hostages? You said there were seven. We can't pull out with just the Blackhawk. We need a second chopper."

"ETA?"

"Twenty minutes? Fuck"

"I understand. I want K-unit off that chopper, so the girls can get on. I'm gonna need all the help I can get covering us for twenty god damn minutes. That chopper better be ready to lift off when we get there. See if you can get another miracle like that Spectre Gunship. Cub out."

With the Technicals loaded, Alex drove the technical through the desert with Sasha right on his tail. They made great time and soon the covered oasis was in sight. Alex smiled as he saw the tell tale miniature dust storm of a helicopter ready to take off in a desert.

He turned around to check how Sasha was doing when he noticed a similar dust storm on the horizon behind them. He swore violently as he saw ten Technical pick ups gaining ground despite the fact he was driving as quickly as possible.

The two trucks broke through the first line of foliage at sixty miles an hour and were in the clearing in another minute. Before the truck had even finished screeching to a stop Alex was out giving orders.

"Wolf, K-Unit get your asses out here. Guns on the front line, Civies in the chopper for evac."

"Joan get everyone in your humvee except Blondie and Asian in the chopper and strapped in. The four of you grab something off the gun-rack."

"Everyone in my humvee get on the chopper. It's lifting off in two minutes fully loaded or not."

K-Unit didn't need to be told and were already setting up a perimeter. The girls terrified as they were, knew when it was smart to listen and get out, and most were in the chopper as soon as the trucks stopped.

The chopper lifted and struggled to get off the ground while filled above maximum capacity, but it valiantly got up and away. Meanwhile Alex was quickly making an improvised road blockade.

He wrapped a bit of the semtek that the chopper had thrown out to lose weight for the passengers, around several of the trees and then secured it with a bit of wire. He then attached a fragmentation grenade to each of the packages of plastic explosives. A long line of wire was then secured to the pin of the frag grenade and then attached to the other side of the path. Alex hoped it would make a sort of improvised road-block/landmine.

He wasn't disappointed. As the first truck hit the first wire, it took out the bit of wire all along the path. The short fuse of the grenade allowed the truck to get almost to the clearing before detonating and causing the semtek to explode with it. Alex smiled as the trees came down and flattened the first four pick-ups killing the crew, in an amazingly loud explosion.

The rear technicals were forced to slow down and go around. They were driving clockwise around the clearing. This put their gunner in an exposed position K-Unit took advantage and all but one of the gunners were at least injured.

It also however allowed the men in the passenger seat of the trucks to fire their AK's at Alex and the others in the clearing. K-Unit and Alex were quick to dive to the ground, and the girls were only a second behind them.

Wolf proved why he was an SAS team leader and shot out the tires of the lead pick up, causing the one behind it to slam into it throwing the men in both to the ground. Eagle, the ever reliable second in command, got a frag grenade into the wreckage and the sharp crack was followed by tortured screams.

The other technicals finally understood what they were dealing with and spread out to offer a wide radius of fire. Alex sized up the situation and came to the conclusion that they were fucked. Under heavy suppressive fire against an enemy with superior fire power was not a good position to be in, especially when there really was no cover, like in the clearing.

Alex realized they were probably going to die and was almost disappointed to note that the usual shot of terror and adrenaline weren't nearly as powerful as they'd been in the past. He was too used to being in life or death situations. Like he usually did he offered up a soft prayer to St. Michael, Patron saint of warriors that the others would be okay and that the chopper would come and get them.

Apparently the archangel heard him because not a second after he'd finished his prayer, the loud wup wup wup of chopper blades were heard. The technical pick up's never heard the chopper, the 50. Calliber turrets bolted to the bed were too loud. They noticed however when the short range air to ground missile from the helicopter slammed into them.

The helicopter struggled to lift back over the tree tops and Alex noticed the tail number was the same one who had the girls in it.

"I thought I told you to bug out." He shouted with a wide smile on his face. "That's disobeying an order from a superior officer. You could get court-martialed." He said mocking the pilot for his earlier worry.

"What was it you said earlier? You can't court-martial someone who doesn't exist. Well you can't court-martial someone for disobeying a superior officer who doesn't exist. So kiss my ass, kid."

"Shut up and tell me when the other chopper is gonna show up." He said still joking

"ETA's about two minutes." The pilot said still giddy. Nothing is better for an ego boost than air support taking pot shots at ground units. It's why so many fighter pilots are so "confident."

"We'll see you back at base. I don't want you running out of fuel, cause of the added weight of the passengers."

"Other chopper is in sight so I'll see you back at base. Wolf, K-Unit, first rounds on me tonight. Cub you get chocolate milk, cause you're still a minor." The pilot said with a final sign off.

The second chopper landed and the Alex, K-Unit and the four girls stepped in and were off. The fly was completely normal and except for Sasha's air sickness nothing remotely interesting happened.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Yo no tengo Alex Rider

Author's note: I swear here with God as my witness that Mary will not not not not not be a Mary-Sue. She will not turn out to be an agent. She will not be a spy. She will have no affiliation with any government agency. This story will not become that. I promise.

Author's note 2: I have no idea how the British education system handles history. I'm an American and here the liberal's run the education. Republican's (Conservatives for the Brits I think) are told to sit down and not talk. That's what I'm basing Alex's teachers off of.

Mary smiled to herself as she headed for her first day of school at her new school. Brookland Comprehensive was everything the brochure said it would be, large, elegant, and a great academic environment.

She felt more comfortable there than she had since she was kidnapped. She shuddered a bit and realized that was the first time she'd thought about it in over twenty four hours. It was happening less and less often.

She got through her classes with relative ease, and she really liked her teachers. They seemed to willing to help her, and enjoyed teaching.

She made friends easy enough. She was tall, pretty, nice and to an extent famous. Most of the girls had been interviewed on one talk show or another but she and Sasha had been given the Queen's Gallantry Medal for service to the British Empire, and had been the two faces for the hostage girls in the media.

School was going well and she was enjoying it. Everything was pretty normal, until the second week of school. She had just parked her car in the parking lot, and was walking on the sidewalk to the front door of the school when a silver monstrosity of a car drove by. She didn't know much about cars but she could tell that this one was large and powerful and expensive.

Two of her friends, Brad and Sarah, stepped away from the car and gave it scathing glares. The entire parking lot stopped in anticipation. There was something about beautiful cars that made crowds want to stop and stare. It gracefully pulled into a parking spot and with a final dull roar the power turned off. She watched the driver gracefully step from the car and she felt her jaw hit the ground.

Alex Rider smiled as he drove his Birthday/Thank you for saving the world present from MI-6. The Aston Martin V-12 was a car out of his dreams, and the fact that MI-6 gave it to him made him almost willing to forget his hatred for the secret agency. Almost.

Alan Blunt had given him a top of the line vehicle. Alex wasn't sure if Smithers had ever told anyone that Alex had asked him to "upgrade" the car. He'd gotten it from Smither's workshop two weeks later than he would have, but the tank like armor, the missile bay, and the improved engine were well worth the wait. Smithers was a genius, and had gone to work on the vehicle with all the enthusiasm of a kid in a candy shop.

He spotted Mary before he even realized he was scanning the area. He'd been doing it for so long he'd stopped thinking about having to scan for enemies. His thoughts raced (which was as close as he got to panic these days) and he tried to figure out what he should do. Should he hide and risk drawing attention to himself, or just act like a normal kid and hope she wouldn't make the connection between Cub and Alex Rider.

He eventually decided on acting casual, and parked the car with practiced ease. He stepped out of the car and began the long walk up to the front door of the school. As he ran his eyes over the crowd for the thousandth time he knew he was spotted. Mary was standing in slack jawed shock, as he walked up to the school.

Mary had her staring interrupted by Brad who spoke with derision, "Don't be impressed with the car or the clothes. It was paid for with blood money."

She whirled around in surprise. She didn't think the student body would know about his life as a spy.

Sarah misinterpreted her look of shock, "Yeah, He doesn't look it but he sells drugs to little kids."

Mary now wanted to laugh and said, "Why do you think that?"

Brad answered, "When he takes his shirt off to change for Gym you can see the bullet wounds. The only way you end up with bullet wounds at our age is if you're into crime. We've also seen him carry around Vicodin and Oxycotin. Both are illegal to have in school. So he obviously has access to illegal prescription drugs."

Sarah nodded in agreement, "He also misses weeks of school at a time. It's because he's in rehab for painkillers. He's a bad guy." She warned

Mary wanted to correct them. They couldn't have been more wrong and we're repeating if not spreading rumors about someone who was a hero, but she was certain she wasn't supposed to tell people that Alex was a miniature James Bond.

Just as she was about to say something to her friends, the bell rang and everyone scampered off to their classes. She walked alone to her first class trying to wrap her mind around the fact that Cub went to school. When ever she thought about him, she always pictured him riding around in Helicopters rescuing people from certain doom, not sitting in Calculus taking notes.

Her first two classes of the day were of the everyday variety. Her third class, French, was anything but. She walked in still confused only to see Alex sitting in the far corner of the room. He was sitting at an angle allowing him to see the door and the entire classroom. He hadn't changed since he'd gotten out of his car, so he was still wearing, a leather racing jacket with a t-shirt under it, a pair of athletic pants, some Nike cross-trainers, and a pair of dark aviators preventing anyone from seeing his eyes.

The French professor walked into the room and began taking attendance. When he got to Alex he said, "Ah Mr. Rider, good to see you. I'd hoped that you'd be here more than last year, but based on this start I'd say that is unlikely."

Alex just shrugged. People had been harassing him for the last three years. Each year he hoped the rumors would die down. Each year he was disappointed. It wasn't anything he wasn't used to dealing with.

French wasn't a big deal for him. He'd spoken if fluently since he was seven. All he had to do was pick up the stupid work sheets and fill them out. Math on the other hand was awful. He had to learn the information and then do the homework and make up the tests. Given adequate motivation he was confident he could be pretty good at Math. There was just no reason to be motivated. Being able to speak French might save his life, Calculus and Trigonometry were just useless.

Mary slid into the seat next to him. There were only ten people in the class, but the classroom was built for thirty. No one wanted to sit next to the violent, drug dealer Alex Rider, so they had plenty of space to themselves.

"Hey Cub" she said slightly nervous. The last time she'd seen him, he'd been dismounting a Blackhawk helicopter after killing more than a dozen Terrorists.

"Cub doesn't exist. My name's Alex, Joan" he said with perfect detachment. She wondered if he practiced saying it in front of a mirror at home.

"My name's Mary, Alex. Joan was a codename given to me by someone who doesn't exist." She said trying to mimic his tone.

Mr. Pierre obviously heard her and turned around to yell. He saw the two of them, and despite the fact that she was the one talking, he yelled at Alex instead, "Mr. Rider, I know you don't show up that often, so you might not know the rules of school but you're not allowed to talk in class."

Alex gave a sharp, "Yes _sir_" The sir was stressed just faintly giving the entire room the sense that Alex respected the man less than he did something he'd scraped off his shoe.

Mr. Pierre was now flushed in anger. "I am one of the finest instructors in all of Great Britain. You are just a student. If you think you know French so well then feel free to attempt the conjugations on the board."

Mary looked up at the board. There were several incredibly complex conjugations and she knew she would have to work hard to stay in the top percent of the class. Alex snatched the chalk out of the teachers hand and began writing down the answers.

She felt bad for him. The teachers and much of the student body loathed him, despite the reason they loathed him being that he was fighting for their freedom. It was a miracle that he hadn't told all of Britain to take a long walk off a short pier.

Eventually French class ended, and she walked to Social Studies. Alex walked in behind her and she couldn't help but wince as she saw the room. It was everything a liberal teacher would have. The liberal party campaign sticker over the desk, the posters urging for peace all over his lectern and just about every other way of saying, I'm an enlightened member of the teacher's union and will only teach what I'm told to.

Mary hated teachers like him. She was raised liberal but after her recent experiences had changed quickly. The constant dose of public education grated on her nerves. She understood that most teachers were liberal and she respected the ones that could keep their own biases out of it. This one obviously couldn't.

She looked over at Alex and realized he was probably going to murder the teacher. He had more experience dealing with the screwed up countries of the world then she did. Instead he just took a deep breath, and went to his seat.

The class was not as bad as she thought it would be. It was worse. Midway through she saw Alex's hand drifting towards the slight bulge in his jacket where she knew he kept his concealed service pistol. She grabbed his hand and refused to let go. He gave her an uncomfortable nod and a grateful smile. They weathered the storm together, making fun of the teacher until they were both silently laughing.

When they stepped out into the hallway they didn't let go of each other's hand. It just seemed natural having their fingers entwined. The rest of the student body didn't think so. Brad and some of his friends especially.

The thought of one their friends, especially the beautiful, popular, fellow senior, friend talking to the troubled sophomore was enough to send them into a rage.

The student body sensed a fight and quickly spread into a circle to allow the gladiators their space in the arena. There were some uncomfortable murmurs when Brad's friends stepped up to. In their minds the fight had just turned into a beating. If it was anyone but the drug dealing delinquent they might have stepped in, and stopped the fight, but it wasn't.

Brad's friend's (Michael, Dan, and Ben) were waiting for Brad to start the fight, but a nod from sent them all forward at once. Brad's friends were the biggest strongest and most violent kids in the entire school. They had all been in their fair share of brawls, they were all bigger than Alex and there were four of them. They never stood a chance.

Michael went down first. Alex simply stepped under his swing and brought his foot down into the arch of Michael's foot. Michael howled and reached down to grab his injured foot. Alex then brought his knee up and drove it into Michael's nose. The knee of his jeans was stained from the blood of the broken nose. He finished the combination by bringing his foot up and kicking him right in the fork of the legs. Michael went down crying, with a broken nose, tendon damage in his foot, and bruised testicles. He was down four seconds after the fight began. He was the lucky one.

The other three boys stopped their rush and backed into fighting stances, poor fighting stances but fighting stances none the less. Alex looked around for a teacher, hoping a teacher would stop the fight before he had to hurt any of the other boys. A small part of him was disappointed to see no one, but a much larger part was happy that he would be able to dish out some revenge on the people who made his school life so miserable.

Ben went down next. Alex faked with a right hook and then kicked his opponent right in the knee. It was an incredibly unfancy move, elegant in it's simplicity, but bone cracked against ligaments and Ben went down screaming. Several of the girls in the audience screamed and one threw up. The knee was obviously hyper extended and a small piece of bone was visible just below the break. Ben stared at his knee for almost ten seconds before he started screaming.

Dan and Brad realized they couldn't back down after their friends had been taken out so humiliatingly, but both were terrified. They both began circling, hoping a teacher would break it up and they wouldn't have to fight. After several moments of this the crowd became impatient and they realized they'd have to do something.

Dan stepped forward while Brad jumped at Alex while his back was turned. Alex had been keeping track of Brad by the noise he made as he moved. He heard Brad move and he stepped to the right to avoid the tackle. Instinct reacted and he brought his foot around in a roundhouse kick. Milliseconds after he began the motion he realized that, that was not a good move. It was too effective. The kick was aimed right at his opponent's throat and it would probably crush his windpipe. Perfect for killing someone in close range combat with Scorpia but not appropriate for a fight at school. He managed to lower it by a couple centimeters, but Brad, seeing the kick tried to duck under it.

Heel met larynx in a flash of violence. Brad went down holding his throat and choking. It was obvious he wasn't getting enough air and would die before the hour was out if he didn't get some emergency treatment. The fight should have been over. Alex had beat the ringleader but Dan was too scared to think about that. He didn't notice Alex drop out of his stance. He brought his fist around and it smashed into the side of Alex's head.

Alex felt something was wrong at the last moment and shifted his weight slightly. It prevented him from being knocked unconscious. He went down spinning but was back on his feet in a second. He was dazed slightly but he was ready to move. In fights for your life, laying there dazed and confused was a good way to get your head kicked in.

Dan tried to press his advantage but this time Alex was ready. He stepped back and caught Dan's right hook with his right hand. Again his body reacted without being told and his left palm slammed against Dan's straightened elbow. It snapped and again a piece of bone was sticking out. Dan took one look at his arm and fainted straight away.

Alex was looking at the injured boy's confused. He couldn't come to grip with the fact that he was so different from the rest of his classmates. He'd been in fights before but usually the aggressors just left with a pair of bruises. Scorpia hand to hand combat was not about self defense. It was about making sure your opponent never was able to attack you again. Their training was effective. Alex continued to look on in shock.

Mr. Pierre walked into the hallway to see Alex standing over the severely injured boys like a conquering hero.

"Alex" he screamed shocked. Some of the injured boy's were some of his favorite students.

The scream broke Alex out of shock, and he was quickly giving orders.

"Someone call an ambulance now."

Forty cell phones all began dialing 911 at once. He hoped the intake of calls wouldn't overload the answering station.

"James" he said pointing to his best friend, "Go get the nurse. Tell her to bring some anesthesia and some stabilizing boards."

James sprinted down the hallway, and the crowd pressed against the walls to let him through.

One of the girls, who thought she knew something about first aid, knelt down by Brad and said, "We have to get his head elevated."

Alex quickly dropped down and slapped her hands away, "He's got a crushed windpipe. Lifting his head will constrict it more. Don't touch him."

The girl nodded and backed off. Alex Rider was in authoritive mode. His voice carried the crisp tone of someone who was used to giving orders, and expected them to be followed.

The nurse arrived, and realizing that professional surgeons were going to be needed to do anything, proceeded to clear a path for the paramedics. Two ambulances arrived about five minutes later and the boys were loaded into the ambulances.

As they loaded the two ambulances Alex heard one of the paramedics say that Brad might need a total laryngectomy. Alex winced, as he heard that. He had done a science project on it and thought it had to be one of the most painful things he'd ever heard. A surgeon essentially removed your voice box and attached your wind pipe to the base of you neck.

It would leave him incapable of speech. Dan would probably never use his arm correctly again, and Ben would probably walk with a limp the rest of his life. As he thought of this, two conflicting thoughts battled in his mind.

The first, the voice closest to the side of his face where he'd been punched was thinking, 'good no one else will ever mess with me again. They deserved it for attacking me.'

The second and louder voice was marveling at what a monster Scorpia and MI-6 had turned him into. He was struggling just to feel guilty at messing up three of his classmate's lives. He regretted what the final outcome had been, but he couldn't regret his actions. Instead he regretted that they had to attack him.

MI-6 had taught him that the philosophy of an eye for an eye was stupid. If someone takes out your eye, you beat them so badly that they can never damage you again.

Scorpia had taken an even harder stance. Scorpia's doctrine was that you killed the man who attacked you, and you don't stop there. You kill the man's friends, family, acquaintances, you burn his house to the ground and then you pour salt and lye over his fields so that it will never be fertile again.

As he watched the ambulance drive away, he shivered to himself. He had taken the MI-6 way out this time, but the Scorpia part of his training was screaming at him to follow up and finish what they had started.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Guess who doesn't own Alex Rider

Author's notes: First, I know Alex is going on missions that seem standard, but I don't have Anthony Horowitz's imagination. All I have is my experiences, a large collection of movies, and my own much lacking in comparison imagination.

Second, I've been asked to provide information on the various vehicles and equipment Alex uses, because some of you aren't familiar with them. I'll slap a URL with an explanation at the bottom of the page that you can hit up at your own choosing. I might go back and fill these in for the other earlier chapters if someone asks me to. If anything else needs explanation mention it in a review.

Alan Blunt and Tulip Jones were sitting in their shared office. Ms. Jones was fiddling with a file that she wasn't looking forward to turning to her boss. It was a behavioral report filed because of their youngest agent. She'd read the report and other than Alex not avoiding the situation and being a little over zealous there wasn't anything wrong with his behavior.

She was not looking forward to handing the file over to her boss because he rarely acted rationally when it came to his youngest agent. True to form, when she handed over the file and her boss read it his face flushed with anger.

Mr. Blunt may not have shown any emotion when there were agents around, but when it was just the two of them, he occasionally let something slip. Today was different.

Instead of letting a small sign of anger slip he started yelling, "What the hell does he think he's doing? He just decides to put four teenagers in the hospital. Does he forget he's not supposed to be drawing attention to himself?"

Trying to be the voice of reason she said, "The report does say that they attacked him. He didn't just snap and start beating people. If he did there would be a lot more than four victims."

Mr. Blunt wasn't in the mood to hear it, "I don't care. We didn't train him to fight kids. We trained him to fight the enemies of our country. Using that against kids is irresponsible."

She coughed in embarrassment, "Uhm, Scorpia did most of his training, them or his Uncle Ian, I can't imagine Scorpia giving the standard don't use this on other kid's disclaimer."

Mr. Blunt was of the opinion that reason was for other people at the moment, and was still ranting and raving, "What does he think he's doing? He should no better."

"Alan, we trained a dog to guard the junkyard. Can we really get mad at it for using that training when other dogs attack it? Just because the dogs that attacked it didn't know how to deal with it doesn't change the fact that he did what we've trained him to do." She said interrupting his raving.

A hundred miles away Alex, several police officers, and the middle aged principle, Mr. Griffin were sitting in an office having a similar conversation.

Mr. Griffin had never seen anything like this before. Sure there'd been fights, Alex had even been in a couple, but there was never a fight that ended up with four students in the hospital, three in critical condition.

He coughed uncomfortably before saying, "Alex we need to know what happened. No one is making any judgments until we know the complete story."

Alex sighed waiting for MI-6 to come and clean up the mess he'd made. "I already told you, I was walking out of class with Mary and they didn't like me. Seeing me with the girl that Brad liked, was the straw that broke the camel's back. They attacked me and I defended myself."

One of the police men laughed disbelievingly, "You defended yourself? We have a broken nose, a broken elbow, a busted knee, and just so everyone knew you were serious, an almost lethally crushed windpipe. If this is you defending yourself what does you attacking look like?"

"Two hundred and seventy four dead enemy agents, not including those killed in bombings only possible because Agent Rider was able to recon the target area." Came the answer from the doorway.

Ms. Jones was standing just inside the doorway looking every bit the severe second in command of MI-6 she was.

Obviously the two officers didn't recognize because one very arrogantly asked, "and who are you? The kid's solicitor?"

Ms. Jones pulled out an official looking badge and said, "Agent Jones, second in command at MI-6, and also the one responsible for Agent Rider here."

The two officers got real respectful, real fast. Ms. Jones brushed them off like they didn't matter, "Agent Rider, why are you in custody?"

Alex was slightly confused when he answered, "The police wanted to ask me some questions about the fight I was in."

Ms. Jones brushed off his answer, "And why did you not simply inform them of your status as a 00 agent?"

All around the necks whipped around in shock. 00 agents were something that was made up by Ian Flemming for James Bond books. They didn't exist, and even if they did they wouldn't be handing that sort of power to a kid.

Alex was confused but smart enough to answer, "I figured you wouldn't want that kind of information in the hands of a school principal and two local police officers."

Ms. Jones nodded appreciatively for him catching on so fast. To the others it looked like she was acknowledging he'd been correct. She then said, "I know you're used to using with Russian defectors but these are British officers. In the future just inform them of your status and we at MI-6 will take care of the Order of Secrecy that everyone will have to sign at the end of the meeting."

At this point Mr. Griffin and the officers were staring with wide eyes at the two of them. They could have been pushed over with a feather.

Alex nodded before deciding to go for broke, "I'm sorry about this, Tulip. I've been an agent for close to five years now. I should know better."

Mr. Griffin had decided that he was going to just drop this. If he got hit with one more surprise he was going to quit. Apparently one of his most problem students had been working for MI-6 for several years, had a license to kill, had spent time dealing with Russian defectors, and was on first name basis with the second command of MI-6. This information made him want to crawl under his bed and hide.

Ms. Jones let the silence stretch on until she was sure that Alex's principle knew exactly what he was dealing with, then said, "Gentleman here's the Order of Secrecy that you are required to sign. If you don't, you will be considered a loose end. MI-6 does not leave loose ends."

The men signed so fast she was surprised they didn't rip through the paper. She smiled at them and then pulled out a photograph for Alex.

It showed a large crater in the desert. Alex looked at it and then looked at her curiously.

"This is what is left of the base you liberated Mary and the others from. MOAB's make such lovely craters. I know you like to see the end result of your missions, and I figured it might give Mary some closure. That was a very impressive extraction 009." She said and left the room.

As soon as they were sure the scary MI-6 lady was gone the officers left the room in a hurry. Alex was left alone in the office with Mr. Griffin who was sweating bullets and looked like he was going to be violently ill.

Alex smiled at him trying to make him relax. Mr. Griffin made an attempt at a smile that looked more like an attempt at passing a kidney stone.

Alex decided to try and strike while the iron was hot and said, "Mr. Griffin now that you know what my absences are for, is there any chance I could be excused for the work that I miss?

Mr. Griffin nearly choked on his tongue agreeing, "Oh yes sir, right away sir, anything for you sir, completely reasonable request sir, I'll send out the notice right now, do you want to read it sir."

"That's okay, Mr. Griffin, I trust you." Alex said before leaving

Mr. Griffin looked so relieved Alex busted up laughing as he left the room.

As he made his way to lunch the looks he was getting made him want to go home and hide under a rock. The angry ones were still there, but fearful, awed, and respectful were sprinkled in liberally.

He sat down next to Tom and the other kids on the soccer/football team. Many of the kids he'd played ball with since he was little got up to find another table. The other kids who wanted to hear Alex's account of the fight tried to slide into the vacant spot's but Alex's pissed off glare was enough to keep them at bay.

Mary slid next to him. Alex noticed with a small bit of guilt and a large bit of satisfaction that Mary's table was much emptier than it normally was. He pulled out the picture and showed it to her.

Mary looked at it for a while, before shrugging and saying, "I give up. What is it?"

Alex smiled and said, "We were calling it Aleppo four. You were probably calling it hell. It's where you and your friends were being held before we rescued you. As you can see MOAB's don't leave anything left standing."

"This is where they were holding us?" she asked surprised

"Yeah, we bombed it back to the stone age, not an hour after we left."

She threw her arms around him in a hug and said, "You have no idea how much this means to me. Can I send this to some of my friends?"

"Of course you can, Ms. Jones gave it to me, to give to you. You can do whatever you want with it." He said

"Thank you so much, Everyone will appreciate this a lot." She said extremely happily.

Three days later Matt returned to school. He apologized for his involvement in the fight, and Alex apologized for hurting him so bad he needed to go to the hospital. Matt just shrugged it off, and said he'd deserved a lot worse for trying to jump someone younger than him.

They were going to be good friends, and between Matt and Mary liking him, his popularity was skyrocketing. His life was awesome for the first time in as long as he could remember.

Then his phone went off. Not his normal phone, but the phone that Smithers had given him, that only Mr. Blunt had the number for.

Mr. Pierre looked up angrily to yell at which ever of his students was looking guilty. He was surprised when he saw Alex Rider pick up the phone with his face a mask of intensity.

Alex nodded twice and then began picking up his books. He was on his way out when he said, "Mr. Pierre, I've got to go. You can ask Mr. Griffin but I need to leave now."

Mary watched him go and couldn't help but be slightly scared. She knew what he was going to do and she was scared for him.

Alex was ready as he walked down to the office with clear eyes and a full heart. He was going to do what he was made to do. He waved to the MI-6 agent who had come to pick him up, and moved out to his car. When Alex clicked the button the lights of the car lit up like a tiger's eyes upon waking. He inserted the key into the ignition and the car gave a loud growl.

The drive to head quarters was quick and easy, and Alex made the long walk to the elevator with his head held high.

Alan Blunt watched the video screen as Alex rode the elevator up to the top floor of the bank. He looked stunningly like his father except the eyes. They were the same color and shape, but Alex's had darker shadows from witnessed horrors, and the colder eyes of someone who had looked death in the eye, and then punched it in the face.

The briefing was short and efficient like everything else MI-6 did. Alex walked into the room and met the master of stoicism Alan Blunt, who handed him a file and told him to get to RAF Lakenheath and be ready to go.

The mission was pretty simple. An agent had turned traitor and had stolen some military secrets that MI-6 didn't want falling into the wrong hands. According to Smithers the information was locked up as securely as possible but given enough time, any code could be cracked. Alex and K-Unit would be responsible for retrieval of the data and destruction of the facility where it was being stored.

Tehran beckoned to Alex as he drove through the crazy London traffic. RAF Lakenheath was a truly massive airport. One side handled most of the international traffic while the other half dealt with purely military aircraft. Alex nodded to the guard manning the security station. The guard had seen Alex enough to know that he was legitimate, and not paid highly enough to ask for proof. He slapped the button and the get opened. Alex drove through and parked next to Wolf's beaten up Toyota.

The flight was boring in the extreme. They landed several hours later and dismounted. They rode through the narrow streets of Tehran and Alex was thankful that the SAS had provided some real armored transports. He didn't want to get involved in Blackhawk Down: Tehran edition.

The MTTCS (Multipurpose Troop Transportation Carrier System) was parked several blocks from the base. It drew some odd looks but a creative paint job by the technicians made it look like nothing more than a rundown troop carrier from the Cold War, of which the SAVAK had plenty.

MI-6 had covertly rented them a room in one of the hotels near the target facility, and K-Unit and Alex crashed. Tomorrow would be a full day of Recon and then they would move on the building and take back the data. Then it was just a matter of laying the charges, detonation, and extraction.

Alex woke the next day wishing he was never born. As the youngest member of the team he had to sleep on the couch. The couch had been so uncomfortable he almost didn't notice the bed bugs, who had infested the couch so thoroughly he was surprised he hadn't found a small fort.

He groaned as he moved to the shower and began the long process of making himself Iranian. Whenever he went undercover in a Muslim nation, Smithers provided him some incredible skin and hair dye. It wouldn't come out until Smither's gave him the counter stuff.

He turned on the shower and waited for the water to warm up. Five minutes later when the water was still in danger of solidifying, Alex gave up the hope of warm water, and stepped, shivering under the stream of water.

As he washed the sweat from his skin he rubbed the dye onto his body and watched his skin tone change color. Ten minutes later Alex had the skin tone of an Arabian, and was dying his hair. He would have to rub some of the sandy dust, that the entire country was built on, into his hair to make it look real.

He looked at himself in the mirror and other than blue lips from the cold of the shower he looked exactly like a young mujahadeen.

He walked out of the room and got dressed in a slightly torn black T-shirt and some loose cloth pants. He held the AK-47, MI-6 had provided, trying to get the casual grip that Muslim jihadists usually had. His instincts screamed at him for his complete disregard for fire arm safety but he finally got it right.

Wolf woke up and pulled a pistol out from under his pillow before he was truly awake. He woke up to find a Muslim youth fiddling with an AK-47 in his room and he was on the sharp end. He was lucky he didn't just shoot the kid.

"Lay on the ground and put your hands on your head" he said in Persian, exhausting half of his knowledge of the language. (The other half wouldn't have been particularly useful because he already knew where the bathroom was.)

The Muslim teen looked at him funny and then said in perfect English, "Wolf, it's me, Alex."

Wolf exhaled deeply and then collapsed back onto his bed. He said something undecipherable into his pillow and then stood up and began to rummage around the room. Eventually the other members of K-Unit woke up and began getting ready for the day.

Alex promised himself he would never get addicted to caffeine after hearing Wolf insult everything from the countries, race, religion, government, women, family, soldiers and place in the universe for not having coffee. Snake and Eagle didn't seem to be doing much better.

Recon was as boring as always. Alex walked by the facility several times after picking up various things from the market. He bought Mary a real Iranian Chador (colorful Iranian dress/robe), and he even picked up a Burkah (the veil that covers a woman's face.) for Tom.

The guards were lax and the men at the gate house weren't even elevated. A rover crossed to the front at irregular intervals but Alex was heartened to note that they seemed to be the typical Iranian guards, and not particularly interested in guarding anything.

Alex's scan of the security and the satellite images of the building's interior made K-Unit confident enough to go through with the assault on the building.

Tomorrow at dawn, It was show time.

List of things mentioned in this chapter.

The troop transport Alex and K-Unit ride in

.?103274-MTTCS-Multipurpose-Troop-Transport-Carrier-System

The SAVAK (May they burn in Hell)

.org/wiki/SAVAK

MOAB (Massive Ordinance Air Blast Bomb) (more commonly known as the Mother Of All Bombs)

.org/wiki/GBU-43/B_Massive_Ordnance_Air_Blast_bomb


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: still not mine

Alex and K-Unit waited, and waited and waited some more. Their bodies were on military time and woken up at 5 o'clock sharp. Fifteen hours before the mission started.

The five men moved around the room with no particular destination in mind. They had to move, staying still for so long was impossible.

The room was a combination of chaos and military precision. Ammunition, magazines, scopes, and parts of guns lay spread all over the table, waiting to be assembled or cleaned. Wiring, grenades, and plastic explosives were similarly scattered around the room with so many explosive safety violations, that a drill sergeant would have had a coronary. Their bags however had been packed and were ready to be placed in the troop transport.

At about noon, Wolf started assembling rations and boiled some water to begin making lunch. No one was hungry but they all knew they had to eat. Wolf stood over all of them making sure they ate the strange looking stew.

The waiting was what Alex always hated. His gut clenched painfully as he ran through the plan and thought of everything that could go wrong. Failure wasn't an option but he always knew in the back of his mind that it was a possibility.

He was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. His head was leaned back and his eyes were closed. The other members of the team could hear a faint beat coming from the ear buds in his ears.

Wolf watched the youngest member of his team and wondered to himself how Cub could keep so calm. Especially because he, himself (An SAS soldier of ten years) was having trouble not fidgeting. He had finally forced himself to sit down at the table and clean and strip the various weapons they would be using for the assault on the facility. It was a coping mechanism he'd always had.

Alex was feeling like the butterflies in his stomach had just turned predatory and were eating him alive from the inside. He watched Wolf sitting calmly at the table prepping for the mission. He wondered if he would ever be so calm. He knew that Wolf had been with the SAS for longer than he'd been with MI-6 but he doubted he would ever be able to sit still and assemble weapons calmly right before they went and used them.

At six, Wolf handed the weapons out and made sure everyone was ready to go. Alex caught the G3 and he handled it with a slight smile on his face. It was a German made assault rifle and it was of much higher quality than the AK-47. It had a longer range than the M-16's the Americans used but it was less accurate at medium range.

Alex had spent more time with one in his hand than he had his school books. He casually glanced over the table scanning for an attachment he might use. He grabbed a (1)40 MM, M203, under barrel grenade launcher and a compact tactical scope. He debated briefly about grabbing a silencer but decided against it.

Wolf's eyebrow rose slightly as he saw the grenade launcher but said nothing. The four other men in the room armed themselves, and body armor was passed around, and strapped on. Alex slipped a baggy cloth shirt over the body armor and the team was ready to go.

The walk through the neighbor hood was uneventful. They'd set up to be on the move when the streets were the least crowded. Very few people saw them, and those that did, had seen enough armed soldiers shoot at civilians, to know just to slip back into their houses.

Alex couldn't help but get angry as he saw the fear in the eyes of the civilians. The team wasn't recognized as British operatives so the people's fear was of their own military. To Alex that was a grievous crime. He made the sacrifices he did so that other people could feel safe and happy.

Alex approached the guard house next to the gate and walked towards it, with the G3 assault rifle strapped to his back under his shirt. The guard barely noticed Alex until he was standing right in front of the window.

Alex held a fragmentation grenade in his sleeve and as he approached the guard house he pulled the pin from the grenade. He kept his hand on the actuating spoon, so that the fuse wouldn't light and the timer wouldn't count down. When he was just a few feet away from the guard house he released the spoon and tossed it lightly into the guard house.

The guard turned around to see what had been thrown into the house and as he saw the grenade his eyes got wide. Two seconds later there was a sharp crack and the guard went down, his body torn apart.

Alex leaped over the service counter, and slapped the button that opened the gate. K-Unit followed through the open gate and Snake gave him a nod of acknowledgement.

The five men made their way to the door of the facility. The facility was closed, so there would be fewer people around, but that also meant that some of the doors might be locked. Alex bent down and took his lock-picking set from his sleeve. Just as he was about to start Wolf took a step back and kicked down the door giving Alex an exasperated glare.

The five men moved through the deserted facility checking their corners, occasionally laying some plastic explosives where Snake told them to.

Alex spun from the corner like he had ten other times that night, this time instead of empty corridor there were two men with AK-47's lounging next to a table, watching something on a tiny TV.

The explosive sound of gunfire shattered the silence of the facility. The two men sitting at the table died before they realized they were under fire.

The teams continued moving through the facility with more urgency, and were to the room where the data would be stored in a matter of minutes. Wolf kicked the door but it didn't budge. Alex again took out his lock picking kit but this time Eagle pulled him back and placed a mini detonation charge on the handle of the door.

He pulled Alex to the side of the door, and the entire team waited in silence for the longest five seconds in history. As soon as the sharp sound of the detonation charge went off K-Unit was through the door with Alex only a step behind.

Wolf was at point and he covered the far left corner of the room, Snake was through next scanning the closest corner, Eagle rolled through covering the far right corner, Fox whirled around and took his position as the guy guarding the corner hidden by the door. It was really a four man tactic so, Alex slid through last and having nothing to do, checked behind the door.

For all the buildup Alex had been feeling there really was nothing there. Fox moved to the computer console table and began typing. He inserted something into a USB port, and then watched the numbers on the screen change. No one else on the team knew anything about computers, so they just stood frostily. Ten minutes later Fox pulled out his disk thing and they were ready to go.

As they were pulling out of the room Wolf turned around and sighted down the scope at a figure about twenty feet away. Snake grabbed the gun and pulled it up. Wolf emptied half a clip into the ceiling, and there was a soft high-pitched feminine scream.

The woman started babbling in incoherent Persian, and Alex just barely caught it. He wasn't sure it that was because his Persian wasn't the best or if the woman wasn't making much sense.

He grabbed the woman and forced her to look at him. Her head dress hid a good portion of her face, but he forced her to look at him. He was surprised at how young she was, about his age.

He spoke softly trying to convey his message with tone as well as words, "We need to leave. We're about to destroy this building and if you are here you will die. If you come with us you will be safe. I will protect you."

She nodded in understanding, whether because his Persian was better than he though or because she understood the general message from hand motions he wasn't sure. She stood up and began to follow them as quiet as a mouse.

They were almost out of the building when the shit hit the fan. Snake turned a corner ready to fire, and was forced back into cover by a ton of gunfire.

Alex placed his weapon against the corner of the call and blindly emptied it down the corner. There were several screams indicating at least one of them had failed to grab some cover or tackle some dirt.

Alex spun across the opening until he was on the opposite side of the entrenched hallway. He had felt several of the harsh pounds that felt like body blows from Muhammad Ali but were actually bullets slamming into his body armor. A completely detached part of his brain told him that he would have some awful bruises tomorrow.

Now that he had a better angle Alex could see where the Iranians were firing from. He grabbed another grenade and bounced it off the wall. He was happy to note that it hit the wall and bounced exactly like it was supposed to. Right in the middle of the crowd of Iranian soldiers.

Screams rang out and the rest of K-Unit and the girl they had picked up came to his side of the hallway with Wolf at the rear. That was when the trouble started. One of the Iranians who had his lower body destroyed and a piece of shrapnel in his chest, fired his AK-47 wildly, and died.

It was downright miraculous, but one of the rounds actually found Wolf's thigh. Wolf went down with a hiss, and Eagle picked him up and threw him over the shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Snake paused as soon as they got outside the facility, and pressed a button. Ten seconds later a massive explosion ripped through the building and a huge fireball flew into the air, like a signal flare from God.

The team made its way to the transport, and Eagle placed Wolf on the table, while Snake was going to work, trying to patch him up.

Fox was behind the wheel and they would be at the extraction point very soon. There were some civilians outside watching the fire, but they'd all seen the military run over a civilian before, and stepped out of the way as the transport drove down the street.

Sahar was scared out of her mind. She had been doing her job, cleaning one of the facilities she and her mom had worked at since she was little, when all of a sudden four men and an Arab boy had showed up shooting people and breaking things. She had been scared but the Arab boy had tried to calm her down in some broken Persian. She'd gone with them because that was better than the alternative. She'd seen the Iranians shoot people in cold blood and she assumed that these men were similar.

The boy however had given his word to protect her, and so she stuck to him like glue. She'd never been so close to a man that wasn't in her family, much less five, even if one was bleeding on a table from where he'd been shot. If her family found out, she'd most likely be disowned, presumed spoiled, and unfit for marriage.

The man driving drove quickly and soon she was farther away from her home then she'd ever been before, except when she went to visit her mother's parents. She was scared of all these people, so she huddled closer to the boy.

After about an hours drive, they parked their vehicle at one of the bases along the Iraqi-Iranian border, and got on a plane. Wolf was sedated and they gently laid him down on one of the beds. When he woke up he'd be fine, in pain, but fine.

Alex wanted to sleep. He was tired and the adrenaline was wearing off. He silently cursed human evolution for making adrenaline such a damn aphrodisiac. He had a good looking female sitting on his lap, who would probably do anything he said, and yet he would never take advantage of someone like that.

He closed his eyes and took off the uncomfortable body armor. His body felt like it was on fire, and the cool of the metal on the back of his seat felt like heaven. Fox took out a bottle of Eszopiclone (Lunesta, a common sleeping pill) and took a couple. Eagle held out his hand and Fox passed him the bottle. Eagle took a few and then passed it to Snake who swallowed the tablets and passed them to Alex.

Alex took two tablets and tried to relax. He passed one to the girl and mimed swallowing. She nodded and swallowed the pill with a questioning look on her face. Alex just smiled and fell asleep dead to the world.

Wolf woke up to see his team passed out, and his thigh hurting like hell. Fox and Eagle were passed out on the seats, with Snake lying down on the ground. Wolf turned around and felt his blood pressure spike. Cub, lying shirtless, with the pretty Iranian girl both with content smiles on their face. Taking advantage of a scared girl was behavior unbefitting of an SAS soldier if he'd ever seen it.

Sahar woke up feeling better than she'd ever felt, she felt warm and safe, instead of cold and scared for the first time in a while. She woke up and opened her eyes and had to fight down a frightened yelp.

She was sleeping with a half naked boy. She was spoiled, ruined, and then the day came back to her. She shuddered to herself and then laid her head back down on the boy's chest, it felt too good to go away from.

Wolf started yelling. Alex sprang awake so fast Sahar fell off his chest.

"What the Fuck do you think you're doing?" Wolf screamed

"What the fuck man you just scared the shit out of her. Shut up" Alex screamed back watching as the girl tried to shrink in on herself and disappear

"Don't lecture me about how to treat her. I'm not the one who took advantage of her." Wolf again shouted accusingly

"I didn't take advantage of her. You fucking retard." Alex shouted defensively

"I'm your superior officer and you will show me some respect." Wolf demanded loudly

"If you're so fucking superior come and prove it." Alex shouted.

The confrontation had been building for months and was really the fault of MI-6 for not putting one of them in charge of the team. People didn't function well when they were trying to figure out who was in charge. Knowing this Alex wasn't surprised when Wolf clocked him with a right hook that sent him sprawling.

If you've ever been in a fight with a friend you know deep down you're not really trying to permanently injure them and that's why neither Alex nor Wolf used their hand to hand training against each other. Both were pissed and while martial arts was good at hurting people it wasn't nearly as good at getting mad out as pile drivers and hay makers. Alex knew he was being stupid. Wolf was bigger and stronger, and thus a better boxer, but he didn't care. He wanted to punch the man.

Alex stood up and went back towards Wolf in a boxing stance. Wolf took another swing but this time Alex was ready. He ducked and then shoved Wolf hard in the chest. Wolf hit the wall of the plane, and Alex let loose with a barrage of body blows.

If Wolf had been healthy he would have countered in no time but with his injured thigh it took him a moment to get his bearings. That moment allowed Alex to get off some body shots driving the wind out of his lungs.

Wolf got his bearings back a few seconds later and he used his superior body weight to shove Alex in the chest. Alex fell backwards and Wolf tried to capitalize, diving on the ground in an attempt to pin Alex to the floor. Alex was still a good fighter though and he rolled until the two men were grappling on the ground.

Alex may have been healthy but Wolf was bigger and was gradually using that to his advantage, so Alex cheated. His elbow hit Wolf right in the thigh and Wolf doubled up to howl in pain and grasp at his thigh. Alex rolled over until he was on top of the man, with his knees digging painfully into the muscular spot between Wolf's collarbone and shoulder.

He drew his fist back ready to continue the fight but a soft cough interrupted them. Both men turned to see three people looking at them slightly horrified. During their brawl the ramp to the plane had opened and they hadn't even noticed.

Mr. Blunt reassured the Prime Minister that Alex was incredibly mature and more than capable of handling the assignments they gave him. He absolutely assured the man that Alex was a consummate professional who never would do anything to embarrass either of the men

His face fell as the ramp to the plane fell open and Alex was laying into Wolf like a boxer with his opponent trapped in the corner. Neither were wearing shirts. Wolf shoved Alex and they both went down rolling around like children. Alex at least represented well by ending up on top of the SAS captain.

Alex looked at the three people recognizing the first two as Mr. Blunt and Ms. Jones but not quite being able to put his finger on how he knew the third man.

Ms. Jones let out another soft cough and he realized he was still pinning Wolf to the ground, with his fist ready to deliver a knockout blow. He got up and then offered a hand to Wolf. Wolf took it and Alex hauled the larger man to his feet. Wolf immediately snapped to parade ground attention.

Alex nodded respectfully to Mr. Blunt and Ms. Jones and then held out his hand to the vaguely familiar third man.

"Rider, Alex Rider" he offered to the man

"Prime Minister Johnson" the man offered and Alex realized where he'd seen the man, everywhere.

Alex rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably and awkwardly said, "Sorry about the whole shooting thing." Wolf's eyes bulged out and his mouth fell open for a second before he snapped it shut.

The Prime Minister just smiled warmly and said, "Ms. Jones explained everything to me and while I was dubious at first she is excellent at convincing people to come around to her point of view."

Alex smiled at the man and agreed, "You have no idea, sir."

The Prime Minister didn't pick up on the underlying meaning and just nodded.

"I'm here to congratulate you on a mission well done, and to pick up the data."

"You couldn't have had Mr. Blunt deliver it to you?" Alex asked suspiciously

The Prime Minister smiled nonthreatingly and said, "I see you've seen right through me, Alex. I actually wanted to meet you."

"You wanted to meet me, sir?" Alex asked suspecting a trap

"Of course, Alex. There have been so many rumors floating around, and I wanted to get your perspective on some things. I can have Ms. Jones set up an appointment at number 10 downing street, or better yet Breacon Beacons (It's the British equivalent to (3) Camp David in my story) that way you don't have to dress up."

Wolf choked on his tongue and Alex said something real intelligent like, "Uhm okay."

Wolf woke up the rest of K-Unit while Alex and the Prime Minister talked. The members of the unit recognized the Prime Minister and were up like the time that Eagle had put ice in everyone's underwear. Ben handed over the data and got a warm hand shake.

Alex talked to Ms. Jones and explained the situation about the girl they'd picked up in the facility. She took sick pleasure in informing him that MI-6 might have something ready in about a week but until then the girl would have to stay with him and Jack.

'At least I don't have to make up all the French homework I missed' he thought to himself

(1) People who play COD on line probably know it as a noob tube for everyone else .org/wiki/M203_grenade_launcher

(3)Camp David is where the President goes whenever there's a security threat or just to relax. He'll often meet soldiers or other famous people there


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Guess who doesn't own Alex Rider?

Alex sighed as he took Sahar by the hand and led her over to the Aston Martin. He opened the door for her and she stepped into the passenger seat. He pulled out of the gated lot next to Wolf and couldn't help but smile at the contrast.

Wolf was driving a beat to shit Toyota, with a bullet wound in his thigh and probably some broken ribs.

Alex on the other hand was driving his MI-6 provided Aston Martin, with a beautiful girl in the passenger seat. Even his injuries were better, just a couple of bruises on the chest from where his body armor had taken the bullets and probably a black eye from where Wolf had punched him.

For a brief second he thought Wolf was going to try and ram him. He thought about the armor Smithers had built into this thing and wondered if Wolf's Toyota would even scratch the paint.

They spent the majority of the car ride to Alex's house at a lazy 90 miles an hour. He pulled into his driveway to see Tom knocking on the door.

Everyday Alex was on assignment Tom would knock on Jack's door just to make sure his friend wasn't killed in the line of duty. Normally Jack would offer him something to eat and tell him there was no news.

Today was different, while he was there Alex pulled into the driveway in what Tom called Alex's overcompensation mobile. Alex stepped out of the car without a shirt on and instead of walking over to Tom like he suspected he would, Alex moved over to the passenger side door and pulled out a gorgeous Arabian girl.

Tom didn't miss the bruises the size of baseballs on Alex's chest nor the gorgeously forming shiner on his eye. He wouldn't trade lives with Alex ever, but Alex sure as hell made his life look glorious.

Alex stuck his hand out and when Tom grabbed it they pulled each other into a masculine hug. The three of them walked into the house and Tom wanted to know about Alex's mission.

"So what happened, Agent 0016?" Tom asked using the nickname he had given Alex when he turned 16

"It was pretty normal, break in, grab what you need, blow up the building, and get the fuck out of the Devil's sandbox." Alex explained deadpanning.

Tom shook his head in disbelief, "The fact that you feel that that's normal is a sad statement about your life. Anything interesting happen?"

Alex struggled to keep the emotionless mask on his face, "Let me think a second, Yeah some interesting stuff happened. Wolf and I got into a fight. I won. Wolf got shot, just in the leg, and I met the Prime Minister who invited me to Downing Street. He's a nice guy completely forgave me for the whole shooting him thing."

Tom's mouth had fallen open, and he was shaking his head. "Your life is just way too damn exciting Alex." He nodded at Sahar, who was watching the two boys trying to figure out what they were saying. "What's her story? Did you finally bring me a souvenir from a mission, or are you bringing your work home with you."

"She was in the building we were raiding. We couldn't have her telling the Iranians she saw us so it was either put a bullet in her head or take her with us. No one wanted to shoot her so we brought her with us." Alex explained

"Why is she staying with you?" Tom asked

"MI-6 needs some time to set up some place for her to live. The way Ms. Jones explained it to me was that I brought the stray home, and now I have to feed it and water it and take care of it." Alex said, his disgust with the organization showing through

Jack walked through the front door with groceries in her arms. She dropped the groceries onto the table and gave Alex a big hug. Alex winced as she crushed his bruises against her.

He then went up to his room and collapsed. The only thing on his mind was, 'I have to go to school tomorrow.'

School sucked like usual. Mr. Griffin had taken his excuse note like it was a piece of gold. He couldn't stop staring it and Alex almost felt like telling him there was nothing special about it. It was just a piece of paper that Ms. Jones had signed with a regular Uni-Ball pen.

His heart fell as he realized they would be swimming in gym. That would include going without a shirt and letting his classmates check out his scars and bruises.

He stepped out of the locker room and was embarrassed as his classmates gawked. There were seven small circular scars that looked oddly like cigarette burns, those were from small arms fire. He had a couple of long lines running across his chest from stabbings, and there were even a couple of triangular scars from when he'd been in the casualty zone (1) of a frag grenade.

The class continued to stare at him except for one girl who stood up and slipped a five euro note into the band of his shorts.

He flushed and said, "I'm not a male stripper."

She continued to look and said, "Well you should be."

There wasn't much Alex could say to that so he got up, grabbed a towel from the set of shelves and wrapped it around his waist so people would stop staring. Mary saved him.

She didn't mean to but she did. She walked out of the girl's locker room in a revealing red one piece. Guys gawked or leered, girls glared in jealousy and Alex managed to not let out a sigh of relief.

He'd been late to school so she didn't see him in any of the earlier classes. She saw him from across the pool and ran across the pool deck and grabbed him in a hug. Alex hugged her back enjoying the feeling of her pressed up again, even if his bruises didn't.

She pulled back to get a better look at him and a look of concern crossed her face as she stared at his black eye.

She gently touched the bruises and when he winced, she said all concernedly, "You're hurt."

He shrugged. He'd been hurt much worse before, and hadn't complained, he wasn't going to start now.

"You should see the other guy." He said with a cocky smile.

The moment was ruined when the gym teacher showed up and told everyone to start swimming laps.

The entire class jumped up in and Alex started swimming. The rest of the class stood near the edge complaining that the water was cold. Alex just shrugged. Water wasn't cold unless you were in danger of getting frost bite. The Baltic Sea off the beach of Russia was cold. The school pool was balmy in comparison.

The day went pretty normally up until lunch. Then the rumor mill went to work. Alex was sitting at his normal table when he noticed the girls at the table pointing and giggling at him. He shrugged it off, people did weird stuff around him.

He noticed several more people looking at him and he began to feel uncomfortable. Howard Thomas was the one who broke the news and almost got his head taken off by result. Howard had come over to the table looked at Alex and said, "I hear you're sleeping with that whore Mary."

Thomas Harris knew something really bad was about to happen. In his experience when Alex Rider got mad he would get still and silent, while plotting your demise with a clear and calm mind.

Alex's eyes vanished into slits of rage locked onto Howard. His face clenched like a snarling wolf and his upper lip twisted into a snarl showing off his canine teeth in a way that made him look bestial. Tom shivered, people died when Alex looked like that.

Tom grabbed Alex's right arm preventing him from pulling the gun with his shooting hand, but Alex didn't go for the gun. He shook Tom off like he weighed nothing and advanced on Howard like a predator stalking a trapped animal.

Howard Thomas might not have been the smartest kid at Brookland comprehensive but even Howard knew when he'd really fucked up, and if the look of murderous rage on Alex's face was anything to go by he'd really fucked up. He looked towards his friends for help, but if the way they were sitting was any indication help wasn't coming from that avenue.

Not that it would have mattered any. Alex had never been so pissed in his life, and the entirety of MI-6 and the SAS wasn't going to stop him from eviscerating Howard Thomas like the frightened rabbit he was.

A small part of Tom Harris was cheering for Alex to beat Howard like a rented mule, but a larger part was thinking that Alex was going to go beyond appropriate measures and get in trouble. He realized there was only one hope of stopping 0016.

Mr. Griffin was supervising the cafeteria when it went silent as a church. He followed people's eyes and felt his heart drop to somewhere around his naval. Alex Rider was advancing on another student with murder in his eyes.

Mr. Griffin's instincts begged him to turn around and act like he hadn't seen anything but he knew his duty and he would do it to the best of his abilities. He moved through the cafeteria in an attempt to preemptively stop the fight. He grabbed Alex and found himself on the ground struggling to breathe.

Alex shook off Mr. Griffin like it was nothing and continued to advance on Howard. Howard's back hit the wall and he raised his hands in a futile effort to defend himself. Alex was within arms reach of Howard and he shifted his weight back, ready to deliver a crippling blow.

He felt someone grab his arm. He whirled around ready to fight anyone and everyone at this point.

Tom watched as Mary grabbed Alex's arm. He thought for a second Alex was going to hit her but their eyes met and the blaze gradually left Alex's eyes. He lowered his arm and took a deep breath.

Howard slipped away. Mary had put out the fire but Alex was still smoldering. If he did something he could be the swift breeze that rekindled the inferno.

Mary had never seen Alex act like that before. Even when he'd been killing people he was cold and emotionally distant, but whatever Howard Thomas had done was enough to send Alex into a burning rage.

She was scared but she knew she was the only one Alex would stop for. They weren't as good a friends as Alex and Tom were but they shared a special connection. They'd both seen people die and had seen what the world outside the civilized parts was like.

She grabbed the fist ready to destroy Howard. He whirled around so fast she was scared he was going to hurt her. His eyes were wild and burning and she wasn't sure he recognized her for a moment but gradually he calmed down.

She pulled him into a hug trying to calm down the guy who saved her life. She held him for several minutes in the crowded silent cafeteria. He then pulled away and walked out the door.

He drove like a man possessed until he pulled into the parking lot of Breacon Beacons. Emotions pounded away at him desperate to escape. Anger fear irritation sadness and grief, they all wanted to come out. He marched to the firing range and grabbed a G3 from the marshal on duty.

He zeroed the gun and started the pop up target program. He sighted down the scope of the assault rifle and began firing. He was in another zone and each target that popped up wasn't the red training target, it was the Scorpia targets, the one with the faces of people on them.

Ms. Jones went down with three rounds in her chest, Mr. Blunt died with six in his forehead. Mr. Prime Minister was hit nine times in the neck and Alex was pleased to watch the head of the dummy/Prime Minister fall to the ground detached from the body.

Herod Sayle and Dr. Grief died next. Bullets in the sniper triangle put both in the ground. Alexi Sarov bought the farm next. Two bullets right in his eyes brought him down painfully. Ash and Damian Cray he didn't even care where he shot them. He just pounded as much lead into them as possible. Drevin, McCain, and Rothman all died similarly, victims of Alex's murderous rage.

He didn't stop there. Dan, Ben, and Brad died next, then all the kids at school who had mocked him. Everyone he'd ever hated lined up for him to mow down with the weapon. He shot for hours and went through a thousand euros of ammunition. His hearing was shot to shit and it wouldn't return that night.

He was too numb to care, which had been the goal. He was too numb to care that he'd almost killed a kid. He was too numb to be angry, too numb to be sad that he could never date or get married without putting the girl in terrible danger. Unfortunately for him, he was not too numb to know that he'd almost hurt Mary when she'd stopped him, and fortunately for him, he wasn't too numb to realize he'd come to like the girl in a romantic sort of way.

He would need alcohol to make himself forget that, so that was his next target. Unfortunately for him Breacon Beacons was a dry camp so he couldn't buy any. He went to the kitchen and snatched some grain liquor form a cabinet. It wasn't for drinking, but for cooking, and thus it needed to be strong so it didn't all evaporate.

It was perfect for Alex. It tasted horrible but it was strong enough that he had a nice buzz going after his first swallow and was blitzed after his third.

Snake found him early in the morning passed out leaning against the mess hall with the empty bottle in his hand. He picked the young man up and brought him over to the bunk where he normally slept. He prepared a hangover remedy for when the boy woke up because if he drank even half the bottle of grain liquor he was going to need it badly.

Technically he should have reported that one of the people in his team had been drinking but he'd been a kid once to, and it wasn't fair for the kid to miss out on being young because other adults made him act older than his age.

Alex woke the next morning feeling like his tongue was made of cat hair and a hedgehog had crawled into his head. He felt like hell and he promised himself he'd never drink again. Then he remembered yesterday and he was tempted to start over.

As he drove back to school he thought about what he was going to do. He thought about how it was irresponsible for him to put her in danger like that.

He pulled into the school parking lot and got out of his car. It was ten o'clock and he was tragically late for school. He waited outside the French classroom. He thought to himself over and over again going through the arguments in his head trying to convince himself.

The bell rang and Mary walked out of the classroom. He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her towards him. He looked her in the eye, and opened his mouth to tell her why they couldn't be together. Teenage hormones saved him and instead he leaned down and kissed her.

The area around a grenade is set into zones. If you're within five meters, you're in what's called the kill zone. Like the name suggests, you're dead. If you're within fifteen meters you're in the casualty zone. The casualty zone means you're for sure injured, usually pretty badly, or dead.

Author's notes:

1. I absolutely hate the first 70% of this chapter. I rewrote it about 9 times and I just couldn't make it right so I published my best.

2. I refuse to write an emo character. Alex may be somewhat depressed but I'm not going to make him cut himself over a girl. It needed to happen, they were going to get together from the beginning.

3. For the record they're not done yet. They're teenagers, those couples last about a week, and don't argue with me, I know I am one. There are still plenty of emotional pitfalls.

4. Either the next chapter or the one after it will be the one I've been dying to write since I first read Stormbreaker. HALO (not the game) (High Altitude Low Opening) jumping on prom night

5. To anyone who tells me that the shooting range is not a good form of therapy, you're wrong. I've been to a shrink and I've been to the range. I know which one makes feel me saner. If ammo wasn't so damn expensive I'd probably update much less frequently.

6. What does it take to get some reviews? Thank you to those that have reviewed but those that haven't come on guys. Let me know what you think. It takes ten seconds. I'll even take flames at this point.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: If you're dumb enough to believe I own Alex Rider you're too dumb to be reading my story. GTFO

For the first time in his life Alex was looking forward to a school event. Prom night was coming up and he was determined to be on his best behavior. No getting shot or stabbed or blown up. He wasn't going to show up to prom with internal bleeding.

He and Mary were going slow, just enjoying each other's company. They went out just about every weekend, and they spent a lot of time at school together. So far all he'd gotten was some passionate kissing but he was hoping prom night might speed up the more physical aspect of the relationship.

The rumors at school still buzzed in the hallways but Alex found himself oddly immune to it, as long as Mary was with him. Many students refused to speculate after seeing Alex in a bad mood with Howard and Brad before. The smart ones felt that their life expectancy would increase greatly if they were to remain quiet.

Many of the students were complaining about the song choices but secretly Alex was quite happy. He'd never been able to dance to more modern music, and his uncle had made him learn to ballroom dance when he was younger. When Alex asked why his uncle had told him that it was something all civilized men learned to do. Only later did Alex realize that it was so he could blend in at various functions in high society. At the time he'd hated it, but now he was looking forward to showing off for his girlfriend.

He smiled remembering how he'd asked her to go with him. (1) Chelsea was playing Manchester United, and he bought a pair of tickets. Mary was a Manchester United fan (nobody's perfect) and he'd called in a favor and had, 'MARY WILL YOU GO TO PROM WITH ME?' put up on the score board. She'd blushed and kissed him passionately while the entire audience had applauded.

He grabbed the tux from his closet and put it on with practiced ease. He didn't spend all of his time in third world shit holes and had to be able to blend in for economic espionage also. He jumped in the Aston Martin, said goodnight to Jack, and was gone. He showed up at Mary's house about an hour early.

He knocked on the door and her father answered it. Alex was met with a stare that made Julie Rothman seem trusting. When Mary's dad was done staring him down he was invited in.

He took a seat in the living room and then the questioning down.

"So Alex, I've been talking to Karen Schmidt about you." Mary's dad said as he also took a seat.

Only years of training in interrogation techniques allowed Alex to resist the urge to swear loudly. Kathy Schmidt was one of the biggest gossips in the school and just a vindictive bitch in general. Her mother Karen was a busybody who always made sure to know whatever was going on at the school.

Alex was freaking out. This interrogation was going to be worse than the one with Dr. Grief. The worst thing about it was that he couldn't blame Mary's dad. If his imaginary daughter brought home a boyfriend who had Alex's reputation at school he would be doing the same thing. Actually he'd be worse, he'd probably be cleaning his service pistol at the same time.

"Oh, and what did she have to say?" Alex asked pretending to not know

"Well Alex, she wasn't complimentary. She said you miss a lot of school, and that you're in a gang, and that you're into drugs, and that you've been involved in several fights at school, the last one just a couple days ago where you actually fought the principal. You can see why I might be concerned."

Alex winced. There wasn't a lot he could say to defend himself, he did miss a lot of school, he had been in several fights and he had tossed the principal while dealing with Howard, and MI-6 had never been any help in getting rid of the drug dealer reputation, it was too good of a cover.

Finally he just said, "There were some special circumstances surrounding some of those things, but I can tell you with one hundred percent honesty that I'm not in a gang nor have I ever done drugs."

Mary's dad smiled like a prosecutor, when the defendant just made a lethal mistake, "Really Alex, Karen Schmidt tells me you were seen with Vicodin(2) in your backpack, you wouldn't lie to me would you, we're practically family."

"I had Vicodin because I was injured. I've never done drugs." Alex said firmly

"Really Alex, what kind of injury?" Mary's dad asked sensing the kill

Alex mumbled something.

Mary's dad smiled sensing he'd caught the defendant in a lie, "I'm sorry Alex, I didn't hear you."

"I was shot" Alex said firmly

"Really can I see the scar Alex, that sounds exciting, scary but exciting." Mary's dad asked

Alex sighed in frustration but quickly unbuttoned his shirt to the third button only showing one of the circular scars. Mary's dad looked disappointed, not that Alex had gotten shot, it was still up in the air whether he would shoot Alex, but that he didn't seem to be a druggy.

"If you aren't in a gang, how did you get shot?" Mary's dad said suddenly seeing a way to snatch a point from the jaws of defeat.

"I was in a drive-by shooting." Alex said quoting the line that MI-6 had given him.

Mary's dad seeing no way to disprove this nodded and then his eyes lasered in on something on Alex's chest. He pushed the fabric of the shirt out of the way and revealed the shrapnel scarring. His eyebrows disappeared into his hairline.

"This drive-by shooting you got caught in, which side was using frag grenades?" Mary's dad asked, forgetting that this was a potential boyfriend for his daughter, and intent on figuring out the enigma that was Alex Rider.

Alex struggled to come up with an answer "Well the police were usin…"

Mary's dad cut him off by jerking the shirt open revealing more bullet scarring and the knife slashes.

"Boy, what have you been doing?" he focused on one of the scars, and measured it with his finger, "These are from different guns." He said pointing out two of the scars, "and that isn't from a pistol, that looks like an AK-47, no that's from an AK-74. Boy what in the name of the holy virgin Mary have you been doing?"

"SAS or Royal Marines?" Alex asked in return while rebuttoning his shirt.

"Neither, Army, we do the job without the queer uniforms, but I asked you a question." Mary's dad said without missing a beat.

"I can neither confirm nor deny any suspicions you might have, but I can tell you that I meet your daughter on May 23 of last year." Alex said cryptically.

Mary's dad thought for a second before the light bulb went on, "May 23rd was when she was being held in Syria. Who do you work for? The SAS? They never followed the rules, and then expected us to bail 'em out."

"Ian Flemming" Alex hinted

Mary's dad's got real wide, "007?" he asked

"0016" Alex answered.

Mary's dad shook his head shocked then said, "Well, I guess my next question of 'what do you do for a living?' is now pointless."

Alex laughed nervously

"What about the fights?" Mary's dad fired off. Apparently a license to kill didn't get you out of the fatherly intimidation speech.

"Up until the most recent one, every fight I've been in has been self defense. I'm competent in self defense, and those that aren't occasionally get hurt." Alex said honestly

"Mess with the best you die like the rest." Mary's dad quoted

Alex just nodded.

Mary's dad shrugged and said, "Boys will be boys. I was in quite a few fights myself when I was your age. Personally, I'd be more scared if you hadn't been in a few scrapes. We used to be a proud people, then we went and wussified the schools, and we get a bunch of weirdoes. What about the last fight you said everyone except the last one was self defense."

"I was defending you daughter's honor." Alex admitted.

Mary's dad's eyes narrowed, and when he spoke it was tight and restrained, "Explain, now."

Reluctantly Alex told him about Howard Thomas. Mary's dad nodded and Alex was sure they would discuss this again. Alex was looking forward to it, Mary's dad struck him as a man of action.

After another hour of interrogation, Mary's dad seemed satisfied and he called his daughter down. As she descended Alex felt something crawl into his throat. She was gorgeous, in a black dress that hugged her curves and was a stunning contrast to her red hair.

Her father unexpectedly saved him, by elbowing him in the side. He stepped forward and took her hand. Several pictures with the family and he was ready to go. He pinned the corsage to her dress and was grateful the dress was modest enough that he could pin it on without getting angry looks from her father.

Eagle had once drunkenly told him the story of when his date wore a scoop neck spaghetti strap dress that pretty much forced him to grope his date to pin the flower on. The date's brother didn't appreciate that and punched him in the face.

Just as they were about to leave Mary's dad stuck his hand out to Alex to shake. Alex grabbed it and his dates father pulled him in tight and said, "I don't care if you are MI-6, show her your penis and I'll cut it off. I have no problem going back to prison." (3)

To the women it looked like a friendly gesture but Alex left feeling quite sick to his stomach. He grabbed Mary's hand and quickly led her to the limo he'd rented.

Mary's father watched Alex scurry from the house feeling more than a little bit satisfied. He looked over at his wife, who was quietly crying that their daughter was growing up, and shivered remembering the speech her father had given him. It was probably the scaredest he'd ever been in his life.

As they stepped into the Limo, Mary looked at Alex and said, "You and my father seemed to be getting on real well. He's hated every boy I've ever brought home."

Alex just smiled, it might have come off sickly.

By the time they got to the hotel where the dance was being held at, Alex had recovered. People watched them mill through the ballroom, and talk with friends. Alex eventually pulled Mary out onto the dance floor and they danced the night away.

At one point when they were taking a break, Tom came over to him.

"If you aren't already, you're going to be the most hated man in school." Tom informed him

"What am I doing?" Alex asked legitimately confused

"Do you have to dance like Casanova? You're making all the girls want to dance, which means that all the guys have to dance, and we don't measure up." Tom laughed

"Well, everyone who's here pretty much hates me anyway. So unless you're starting to hate me, I don't see any reason to stop." Alex informed his best friend

"I don't know, if you do that lift spin thing again I might not be able to talk to you for a couple of days. Sarah is looking at me like, 'why can't you do that?" Tom joked

"The Viennese Waltz isn't that difficult. I learned it when I was nine." Alex teased his friend

"That's what you said about learning French, and that's a major pain in the ass to learn." Tom informed Alex.

Alex was about to respond when his phone went off. Mary, Alex, and Tom all stopped. Alex reached into his bag and pulled out his MI-6 phone. Sure enough it was lit up and ringing. Alex briefly considered throwing it in the punch bowl, but with an apologetic look at Mary he opened it and put it next to his ear.

Mary watched Alex answer the phone and she knew their evening was over. She watched him whisper angrily into it and she knew that this was the danger of dating someone who was always on call, and to save the world no less.

Alex slammed the phone shut and looked at her.

"Mary I'm so sorry, but I have to go." He said and he looked like he might start crying.

"Alex I understand. You have responsibilities." She said and despite the fact that she was disappointed she knew she couldn't keep him there.

"Here's the thing Mary, Ms. Jones in an attempt at apologizing for ruining your prom is going to allow you to stay in the plane, while we jump in. Do you want to go?"(4)

It took her a second to realize what he was saying, but when she figured it out she jumped at the opportunity, "Absolutely, let's go." She said with enthusiasm.

He led her out to the limo, which was still waiting to take people home. When Alex had reserved it he'd made sure the driver was MI-6, so the man was already clued in. he raised an eyebrow when he saw Mary but other than that he made no comment.

The trip to the airport was short, and Alex began the walk to the plane. Mary stepped out but her high heels dug into the wet grass making walking very difficult. Eventually Alex just picked her up bridal style, and walked with her on to the plane.

Snake watched Alex enter the plane wearing a tux. In his arms was a stunning red head in a black cocktail dress. He placed her on the bench and then quickly strapped her into the seat. 0016 had more style than 007.

Alex finished strapping Mary in and then looked at Wolf, all memories of their fight completely forgotten by both. They were brothers in arms, and tempers flared, you didn't let it get in the way of the team.

"What's going on Wolf? They just told me to show up." Alex said, and then noticed something was wrong with Wolf.

He was pale as a ghost and sweating bullets. Alex had seen Wolf freak out exactly once in his life, and even in the training jump it hadn't been this bad. Wolf looked like he was going to hurl.

Eagle answered for him, "We're HALO jumping into Guatemala. HALO. High Altitude Low Opening, into a hostile country." Eagle was excited.

Snake was also excited but was containing it better. He looked at Eagle and said, "Tell him the best part."

Eagle's smile threatened to split open his face, "We're HALO jumping from 75,000 feet!"

Alex felt himself go slackjawed, "75,000 feet? Fuck no! I read the manual! It says very clearly if you go over 30,000 feet, you're going to get slightly bent(5). 75,000 feet you'd die from the nitrogen bubbles, not to mention the impact of landing."

Eagle was still smiling and Alex wondered if he was medicated, "Yeah man, MI-6 came through for us. Made a pill so we don't get bent to hell."

"What about landing? And why the hell are we jumping from 75,000 fucking feet anyway."

Snake answered for Eagle who was giggling deliriously to himself, "Low opening at about 2000 feet. We got two chutes. We stay together in fall, and deploy our first chute at 40,000 feet, we separate at 10,000 and then deploy the second chute at 2,000 feet. As for why we're doing it, the Guatemalans have radar up until 70,000 feet, and we're not losing a plane to a SAM (Surface to Air Missile)."

Eagle stood up and began shouting, "We're going to be fucking legends. We're jumping from Outer Space. Outer Space Alex, Can you imagine that? We're going to have to get you a baby Astronaut suit."

"Eagle, it's not that exciting man. I mean the stars are pretty and all, and earth is gorgeous in orbit, but it's not like you're walking on the moon or anything." Alex said scared that Eagle was going to hyperventilate from excitement.

The four other people in the cargo turned and stared at him. Fox finally asked the question they were all thinking, "When the fuck did you go into Space?"

Alex just shrugged, "I'm the one who took that Ark Angel place down. It was essentially a guided meteor that some crazy was going to crash into something."

It was Mary who spoke and she seemed upset, "You didn't think to mention that. Hi I'm Alex, My favorite color is blue and I've been in Outer Space."

"It didn't seem like that big a deal." He muttered.

They're conversation was interrupted when one of the crewmen walked down the ladder and handed Alex a suit, "We'll be over Guatemala in three hours and you need to get ready to go."

Alex nodded and began taking off his tux. He looked over at Mary and saw her observing him with interest. He blushed and said, "Mary if you don't mind I'm changing here. Could you close your eyes?"

She looked at him and said, "No"

He cursed quietly and got dressed as quickly as possible, feeling like a piece of meat that Mary was thinking about buying.

After another two hours the speakers again crackled alive and told them they would be over Guatemala in ten minutes.

Alex stood up kissed Mary on the forehead and turned to face the rest of K-Unit

She watched him turn around, and said, "Alex come back to me."

He didn't turn around but said, "Sweet Mary, I'm so tired, but I can't come home till the last shots fired." (6)

The five men moved to the edge of the ramp and it gradually descended. Wolf put his hand into the hair and the other four men touched his hand.

Then Wolf began to pray.

Angelic Michael, hear my call

As through the sky, I now will fall

Satan you once cast from here

Help me now to conquer fear

My static line have hooked to hold

And then my chute it make unfold

Suspension lines untagled be

And open up my canopy

From other jumpers float me clear

As safely down I persevere

On angels wings I hit the ground

My fathers favor I have found

In Thanks Saint Michael I do pray

For God has helped me all the way. (7)

Then they jumped.

I know nothing about Soccer/football. I'm an American football guy. I play for my highschool team and I cheer for the Packers. If that's not right I apologize. I went with the two teams I know.

Prescription painkiller, very addictive, makes some people act strange.

My Junior proms date's dad actually said that to me. He was serious.

I know slightly out of character for Ms. Jones, but I figure you'd have to be a major bitch to ruin another woman's senior prom.

Bends from rapid air pressure change, like in scuba diving. You can get it from parachuting also.

An E-Cookie to whoever can tell me the song.

Official prayer of paratroopers. No atheists in a fox-hole.


End file.
